


differences

by Nyxierose



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Probably Canon Divergent, post-6x08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-08 17:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19475515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/pseuds/Nyxierose
Summary: "Neither of them have ever been good at making the difficult decisions. She did something that seemed like a good enough idea at the time, risky and insane but the only option left apart from an ending she has sworn so many times she will not endure a second time, and he gets to live with it."





	differences

**Author's Note:**

> We are now two seasons for two on me being willing to work and write with the fascinating wtf the show has pulled with these babes, so... this is post-bodyswap and probably not the only thing I'm gonna write about this mindfuck of a situation. I still have hope for them, and while this is not a curveball I necessarily WANTED, I don't think it'll ruin things as much as some of the tumblr wildlife who can't tag think it will...

Different eyes stare at him in the mirror. It's been four days and still a fight to accept that this body is _him_ now. He raises his hand and then lowers it, watching the movement in the reflection. This is going to be a hell of an adjustment period.

Somehow not the strangest thing that's ever happened, Marcus reminds himself. At least there's an explanation for this one - not one he's particularly happy with, but after the third or fourth run-through he at least understood the logistics of how it had happened. Why and how it had been justified. Unhappy, but smart enough to realize this kind of second chance is not to be wasted.

He lost track of how many times he should've died years ago, but the most recent almost-ending would've been a great cosmic letdown. If this all had to happen, this moving of his consciousness into a different body, it makes sense in this kind of timing. When he dies, if he is ever allowed to die, it ought to be some kind of sacrifice. The latest almost wasn't. The latest almost was-

A door opens behind him and he turns. Abby. Of course. She's hovered since this all happened, and he can't blame her for that, nor for anything else.

He ought to be angry. He ought to hate her. But he never has and he damn well won't start now, not over the most _her_ thing she has ever done.

He knows her too well, perhaps. Has known her so long and close enough to know how she fights for those she loves, and the day she clearly decided he was one of them was one of the best of his life. Years ago now, another life, a quiet day and a heartbeat of an embrace and he knew.

She has not changed at all. This is what he clings to, as he deals with the rest.

"Something wrong?" she asks, crossing the space between them but not daring to touch. He is used to a much more tactile version of the woman he loves, yet he understands her hesitation under these strange circumstances. He supposes he would do the same if roles were reversed, and yet he cannot…

He would not be desperate enough to make the choices she did, he thinks. And yet he cannot know, and he hopes he never will.

"Still in shock," he murmurs, because he has to give her something. Less so with every passing day, but he is unsure if this new body will ever feel like his. Perhaps that's a good thing.

"I'm sorry. It was the only way to… I tried everything else, I…"

Oh. Oh no.

He's seen a few of her guilt spirals over the years, enough to know when one is beginning, and he doesn't have the energy for that storm. Once begun it can only be waited out, and while that would still be more eventful than anything else he's been allowed to do since the switch…

"You don't need to apologize to me."

"The hell I don't."

Or perhaps not a guilt spiral, perhaps something even worse. Abby when she wants to pick a fight because that's easier than dealing with her issues is a fascinating sight, but a little less so when he's her chosen emotional punching bag. Which he probably deserves, long-delayed cosmic payback for a decade of the same behavior, but-

"Abby."

"I knew goddamn well what I was doing. I couldn't let you go. And I am not… I did that for _me_. Barely for you." She takes a breath, steadies herself against a wall. Yeah, full fight mode and too lost to realize he knows the signs. "Do you finally hate me, now that I can admit that?"

"No."

He remembers first deciding she was attractive - she was in one of these moods, an easy fifteen years in their past, still very married but perhaps not as happily as she claimed, and that raw fire in her ignited something in him in return. It's oddly comforting that despite how much has changed since then, she is still capable of lighting up a room with misguided frustration. An odd trait to fall in love with, and yet-

"What the fuck do I have to do to push you away?"

"Is that what you're trying to do?"

She makes a low noise somewhere between a hiss and a growl. "Well considering this didn't work…"

"You saved me. Again. I'm missing the part where I should be mad about it."

"What about the part where I functionally killed someone and you're in a different body that used to have a different occupant?"

He does wonder about that. He suspects details have been kept intentionally vague - all he has of this body's previous occupant is a first name and a rough guess of age that puts this form at about fifteen years younger than his previous body, and oh that should not sound so _normal_ already - but Marcus has pieced together a few things on his own. This body has no intentional marks nor any scars significant enough for him to wonder about, and these hands have never worn a wedding ring nor spent significant time holding any kind of weapon. The previous occupant lived a boring life, and on some level that makes it stranger. He would be more comfortable in a body that came with a map. But he has this one, and he's in no place to complain.

"You saved me," he repeats. He half wants to lean down and kiss her and see how much of a mess _that_ becomes, but later, once he can't feel the heat radiating off her, once he-

"You are the only person who thinks that's what I did."

"And the only person who has to live with it," he reminds her. "That's what matters."

"You are way too fucking calm about this."

He is not calm so much as… aware of when not to burden other people, he thinks might be a way of putting it. Abby is having enough of a crisis of her own volition, and he can only imagine how much worse he would make it.

"You're panicking enough for both of us."

"I am not _panicking_ ," she counters, hands on her hips that way she does when she thinks she's more intimidating than she is. "I am wondering why the hell you're _not_. There's a difference."

There is absolutely not, he's tempted to point out, but he doesn't. Pick your battles, especially when your girlfriend - is she still that? are they still anything that can be described? - is determined to pick all of them at the same time. This is a moment for damage control, not adding fuel to a fire.

"I'm getting used to it. Is that an answer you want?"

"No. I want you to be mad. I want you to think I've gone too far. I want… I know you too well, and you won't, and that makes it _worse_ , and-"

Oh god. She's about to start crying, and one of the core things he knows about her that he suspects no one else does is that she absolutely hates breaking down in front of other people. Damage control, he repeats. They can deal with everything else later. Right now…

Right now he knows that leaning down and putting his mouth on hers will at least distract her enough to ward off the oncoming mess of self-loathing that will happen if so much as a single teardrop falls from her tired eyes, and so he does. She is the same as ever, a little bit smaller in his arms but still _her_ in every way that matters, and she opens up. She hasn't said much about the desperation he wasn't there for, but he tastes it as this new tongue learns her chapped lips, feels it as she wraps herself around him as best she can. He cannot fault her for anything.

Neither of them have ever been good at making the difficult decisions. She did something that seemed like a good enough idea at the time, risky and insane but the only option left apart from an ending she has sworn so many times she will not endure a second time, and he gets to live with it. He's lived with worse, he reminds himself as he undoes her hair. He has lived with so much worse than all she is. His own demons in a long-locked past were hell enough. At least hers are friendly, for the time being.

"Is this at all weird for you?" he asks when they break for air.

"Weird how?"

"In any way."

"Yeah. You're not… I worked with the options I had. And probably made things worse, because you're technically younger now and yet you're not, but… I'll get over that detail. Pretty sure no one else will."

"Can't imagine there were any more suitable hosts lying around," he laughs. Could be worse, could be even younger, could be-

"You have the same eyes. And similar enough everything else. And I'd still love you if you'd ended up looking completely different, but…"

Similar enough. She's not wrong. He looks like what he imagines a brother of his previous body would look like - another statement that should not feel so normal, but he's trying. Different but close enough to what was. Could've been so much worse.

"You did what you had to do."

"I did something desperate that no one we know is ever going to forgive me for," she corrects. "And I don't think I regret it as much as they want me to."

"Could you get used to this, Abby?"

"To what part?"

"The differences." The scars that aren't there. The fact that he still knows her body perfectly but she doesn't know this one at all, and he can't envision that being a full-on problem for a while yet but hopefully it _will_ down the line, and-

"I'm going to. That enough?"

She rests her body against his, and circumstances be damned, some things don't change. She is still her, exactly the same, still makes the soft purring noise as these new hands rest on her back. And as long as she stays - and he knows with every cell of this new skin that she's not going anywhere, never has and never will - the rest of it will be alright.

"Yes."

"Is it weird for you that I look… less than you?" Her voice catches, like she's torn between a few self-deprecating comments and can't decide which will hurt herself the most. "That we don't match anymore?"

"Not at all. Reminds me this is all real and not a bad dream."

"Because I still look like shit?"

He kisses her forehead, because he can. "You look like _you_ , Abby. You saved my mind, remember? Preferences haven't changed."

"You did not answer my question."

"It might be strange to other people. It isn't to me."

Hell of an adjustment period, he thinks as he closes his eyes for a heartbeat and lets himself try to inhabit this body a little better. But it all happened because someone loved him too much, and that's not a bad start for a new life.


End file.
